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Carroll: Should Colorado give a green light to self-driving cars?

A self-driving car developed and outfitted by Google, with device on roof, is seen at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., in 2010.

By 2040, 75 percent of all vehicles on the road will drive themselves, according to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. And if you think that's a long way off, or an unlikely scenario, let's play the exercise in reverse.

Imagine someone in 1986 predicting that by 2013 more than half of Americans would be carrying around a small device that could perform all the wonders associated with today's smartphones.

The mid-'80s weren't so long ago, really, and yet our forecaster would have been scoffed at.

State Sen. Greg Brophy would like to push up that 2040 date for self-driving cars, which are no mere fantasy but exist in prototype. So the Republican from Wray has authored a bill "to encourage the adaptation and use of self-driving vehicles on our roadways."

It's not that self-driving vehicles are illegal at the moment, but there's a question of liability so long as the law doesn't provide for their use.

Last year Nevada became the first state to legalize self-driving or "autonomous" cars, and Florida and California — where Google's autonomous cars have logged hundreds of thousands of miles — soon followed suit. Brophy doesn't want Colorado to be left behind.

How did he get interested in the topic? Well, he's a technology buff, but there's a rural spur, too. "My tractor doesn't have 'auto steer,' " he told me, "but I've driven tractors with auto steer. And it's one of the coolest things in the world to have your tractor take a perfectly straight line across the field. It's way more precise than a human. ... And if you talk to farmers who use auto steer all day, they're not nearly as tired as they usually would be."

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"I drive about 50,000 miles a year," he added, "and I would love to clear out my email" while in a car rather than keep an eye on the road. So naturally, his Senate Bill 16 provides for use of a "mobile phone, including text messaging, while using a guidance system."

But of course that's not the bill's main purpose. It "clarifies that a person may drive using a guidance system" but only if, among other things, the vehicle has "an override switch" and its driver has a license and insurance.

Moreover, "a driver is responsible for any damage" caused by a self-driving vehicle "to the same degree as if the driver were manually" at the controls.

Don't panic: It's not as if your daffy neighbor is going to pull up to the curb in a self-driving car anytime soon if the legislation passes. There are no models in general production, although Wired reported last year that "GM's Cadillac division expects to produce partially autonomous cars at a large scale by 2015" and several other automakers — including Audi, BMW, Volvo and Lexus — have self-driving concept cars, too.

But Google's fleet of self-driving vehicles, under the guidance of brilliant Stanford researcher Sebastian Thrun, seems to be furthest along. The company's cars have traversed the streets of San Francisco, Highway 1 along the coast and elsewhere for many thousands of miles without mishap.

As Thrun explained last year, "Automated cars use video cameras, radio sensors and a laser range finder to 'see' other traffic, as well as detailed maps ... to navigate the road ahead" — and both he and Google co-founder Sergey Brin extol the vehicles' potential to save thousands of lives.

More than 90 percent of accidents involve human error. Self-driving cars won't be hampered by blind spots. They won't face distractions. They won't get angry in heavy congestion or when cut off in traffic. And they won't show off, get drunk or run red lights.

We spend a lot of time in bitter debate over policies that may or may not increase safety, such as mandating the size of gun magazines. Meanwhile, the real sentinels of safety are quietly transforming technology, off center stage.

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